Cardinal George Pell will be released from prison after Australia’s highest court dismissed the convictions of the most senior Catholic found guilty of child sex abuse. Ending an almost five-year juridical odyssey, Chief Justice Susan Kiefel delivered the court’s decision to an almost empty courtroom in Brisbane, Australia, just after 10 a.m. on April 7. Because of the ban on travel due to the coronavirus pandemic, the other high court judges remained in their home states. The decision means Cardinal George Pell will be released from Barwon Prison outside Melbourne.
Pope Francis’ former finance minister was convicted by a Victoria state jury in 2018 of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in a back room of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in December 1996 while he was archbishop of Australia’s second-largest city.
“A just governing order must have ample power to cope with large-scale crises of public health and well-being—reading ‘health’ in many senses, not only literal and physical but also metaphorical and social.... Elaborating on the common-good principle that no constitutional right to refuse vaccination exists [citing Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905)], constitutional law will define in broad terms the authority of the state to protect the public’s health and well-being, protecting the weak from pandemics and scourges of many kinds—biological, social, and economic—even when doing so requires overriding the selfish claims of individuals to private ‘rights.’”
“[T]he district court ignored the framework governing emergency public health measures.... See Jacobson v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905). ‘[U]nder the pressure of great dangers,’ constitutional rights may be reasonably restricted ‘as the safety of the general public may demand.’ Id. at 29..... [T]he district court usurped the state’s authority to craft emergency health measures. Instead, the court substituted its own view of the efficacy of applying [the executive order] to abortion. But ‘[i]t is no part of the function of a court’ to decide which measures are ‘likely to be the most effective for the protection of the public against disease.’ Jacobson, 197 U.S. at 30.”
Emilia Justyna Powell wants to change how people see Islamic law and culture — because too often, she’s found, people in the West have an inaccurate view of it as strict or outdated.
Powell, an associate professor of political science and concurrent associate professor of law, has spent five years traveling to Muslim-majority countries and interviewing Muslim scholars for her new book exploring the similarities and differences between the Islamic legal tradition and classical international law.
“Individuals outside the Islamic milieu often assume that our way of life is better, but the sad part is that many of us don’t understand Islam at all,” she said. “And my book addresses that.”
Read more about professor Powell and her work here.
The U.S. religious freedom ambassador on Thursday called on governments to release prisoners of conscience during the new coronavirus pandemic.
“In this time of pandemic, religious prisoners should be released. We call on all governments around the world to do so,” Sam Brownback, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, said on April 2 during a conference call with reporters.
The publishing house of Peter Lang has released an important book edited by Pillar Zambrano of the University of Navarra and William L. Saunders of the Catholic University of America entitled Unborn Human Life and Fundamental Rights. The books chapters present essays by leading scholars examing the legal status of unborn children in various jurisdictions. I read the essays in manuscript for the publisher and had this to say:
This book brings together an impressive group of scholars and obtained from them work of the highest intellectual caliber. In the struggle for the protections of all innocent human life, it will prove to be an invaluable tool.
The volume opens with two excellent essays on abortion law in the United States--one by Bill Saunders and one by Gerard V. Bradley of Notre Dame Law School. There is a very important concluding reflection by John Finnis of Oxford University and Notre Dame. Appropriately, the book is dedicated to Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard Law School as "a valiant defender of the dignity and rights of every member of the human family."
In a setting that now feels like an eternity ago - when I was emerging from the house to commute to campus - this essay, “Be Part of a Listening Team: A Response to the Coronavirus,” published in the Focolare’s monthly magazine, Living City, reflects on how the example of love and care for neighbors in the wake of the Taal volcano eruption in the Philippines shines a light on a personal response to the Coronavirus crisis. Even if, for the time being, we are not chatting in the halls with colleagues or holding in-person office hours, I sense that many are nonetheless finding numerous creative ways to continue to be part of a “listening team.”
I've been working on multiple-choice questions for the University of Richmond Law School one-Ls in my Constitutional Law class this semester. Inspired by Adrian Vermeule's "Beyond Originalism" to think more deeply about the relationship between U.S. constitutionalism and Catholic Social Teaching, here's a multiple-choice question for the broader universe of MOJ readers.
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Four key commitments of the Constitution of the United States of America are (1) popular sovereignty, (2) writtenness, (3) federalism, and (4) separation of powers. Which, if any, of these key commitments of American constitutionalism does Catholic Social Teaching endorse as an essential aspect of a sound theory of the State?
Florida this week joined the states directing residents to stay home to help reduce spread of the coronavirus but carving out exemptions for religious services, drawing criticism as the federal government advises against gathering in groups of more than 10.
The stay-at-home order issued by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Wednesday directs Floridians to stay home except to obtain or provide essential services. Attending services conducted in houses of worship is listed under the definition of "essential activities.”
Florida is among several states issuing orders for people to avoid leaving their homes but granting certain exemptions for religious services over concerns that forcing houses of worship to close would violate the constitutional right to religious freedom.
Last summer, Angela Franks and I co-taught the inaugural session of this intensive summer seminar, "Man, Woman, Body, Soul in the Western Tradition." Sponsored by the Abigail Adams Institute and hosted in the government department at Harvard University, the seminar is open to advanced undergrads, graduates students, and young professionals. This summer, it will take place during the first week of August, assuming things are a bit back to normal. Here's more.
Application deadlines have been extended until April 17th.
